Her Scent
by poetryismyfirstlove
Summary: They say memory and smell are intertwined. Sasuke recollects Sakura's scent throughout the years, but there was one scent he would always associate with her.


Sakura's scent would always be memorable to Sasuke. He remembers each one of them clearly, some more than others.

* * *

.

**cherryblossoms**

It is easy to be misled that just because Sakura is named after the cherry blossoms that she would smell like her namesake. Truthfully, the only time she smells like them is when its spring and those loose petals would be drifting ubiquitously. Ordinarily, she smelled like a mixture of nondescript floral scents.

.

**books and scrolls**

Sakura had always been bookish. She pored over old books and scrolls for long hours at the library that sometimes she'd carry the smell home.

.

**grass**

After really strenuous spars, team seven would often cool down on a patch of green. Naruto would blabber on how he cheated with his Sharingan and how he would beat him next time. Kakashi would point out their mistakes and tell them how they could improve while glossing over his perverted book. Sakura would lay down giggling over Naruto's antics at riling him up then bonking Naruto on the head if the dobe insults him. When they would get up afterwards to go to Ichiraku's for ramen as per tradition, Sakura would brush herself off and he would catch a whiff of grass.

.

**sweat**

On week-long missions where they couldn't spare a bath or when they were in a hurry to go home, he could smell himself of dried sweat and lingering smoke. The dobe would stink like stale ramen and dirt. Kakashi unbelievably smelled like the forest. Sakura smelled like sweat but it wasn't foul. She still smelled like a girl.

.

**milk and baby powder**

On one of their baby-sitting missions, as he and Naruto took care of the older children and got drenched with water and stained with spilled juice and jam, Sakura took care of the little one year old. When they were going home, she smelled like milk and baby powder. He thought she would make a good mother.

.

**cotton candy**

Sakura convinced him and Naruto to attend a festival while out on a small town on a mission. She and Naruto would point at everything they found amusing while he looked on with disinterest. There was a rush of people and he lost sight of Sakura. He panicked for a while until she returned to his side, her breath smelling sweetly of cotton candy.

.

**fear**

Once in the forest of death when they met Orochimaru, when he and Naruto fought on top of the hospital, when he aimed a chidori at her back, he could almost smell her fear.

.

**desperation**

That time in Nami when she thought he was dead, the first time he used his cursed seal, the time Sakura screamed her love in the still shadows of night, she was so close he could smell her genuine concern and desperation.

.

**sterile soap and alcohol**

Now that she works full time in the hospital when not on missions or off duty, she would carry the smell of sterile soap and alcohol.

.

**herbs**

When the hospital wasn't as busy, Sakura would spend time concocting poisons and antidotes and other medicinal cocktails. On days such as these, she would smell strongly of herbs.

.

**blood**

Sometimes, she would get difficult cases like ambushed ninjas and ANBUs with critical wounds. Sakura and Shizune would try their best and save them. Most lived under their expert healing but sometimes there would be that patient that was unsalvageable. He'd see Sakura dragging herself home eyes red and swollen with dried tears on her cheeks, her clothes soaked and smelled of blood.

.

**lavender and chamomile**

With the stress of the hospital and missions, Sakura would enjoy her time soaking and relaxing in a bath tub of lavender and chamomile.

.

**sake**

It would seem that as they were taught by the Sannins, they would also gain some of their idiosyncrasies. Naruto's perverted tendencies intensified. He would have a thing for snakes. Sakura would occasionally smell of sake.

.

**coffee**

When she's been on her feet for the last 24 hours in the hospital, Sakura would smell strongly of black bitter coffee.

.

**apples**

Just like when they were younger and he'd end up in the hospital, Sakura would always leave him daffodils on a vase and her hands would smell like the apples she would peel for him.

.

**tomatoes**

When Sakura offered to cook for team seven, she made all of their favourites. But what he'll remember the most are not the onigiri and grilled tomatoes. It was that she smelled like tomatoes.

.

**vanilla and sandalwood**

Compared to her younger years when she would use products with floral scents, the older Sakura preferred vanilla and sandalwood.

.

**coconut milk and papaya**

When Sakura would dress up to go out with Ino to clubs, he would easily be convinced by the dobe to follow them lest some guy would take advantage of her. It was easy to forget she was also a ninja. He blames this on the fact that the heady smell of coconut milk and papaya was distracting.

.

**rain**

It was a rather easy scroll retrieval mission at Ame but Sakura was with him because the rogue nin was a poison expert and he may need her help. It turns out he did need her help and while they were waiting for the effects of the poison to pass as she gave him the antidote, Sakura wrapped her arms around him to ease his shivering from the cold. He fell into a warm sleep with the scent of rain.

.

**musk and ink**

It happened once when she was out on a mission with his pale replacement alone. Sakura came home smelling of musk and ink. He didn't know why he hated it so much.

.

**green tea and mint**

He dragged Sakura to his house and asked her to bathe right away. Sakura was angered but she relented when he told her she stinked. Afterwards, she came out of the shower smelling like green tea and mint and asked him if he was satisfied. He couldn't understand why but he found it appealing that she smelled like him.

.

**love**

It took a few bumps and twists and loops in their warped but stronger renewed bonds as a team, an even more arduous time to build the trust back between the two of them to be comfortable again when it's just the two of them and almost 8 years before he realized something she already knew, that the unfamiliar scent that would always linger in her presence he couldn't recognize before was love.

.

**roses**

Promptly after that, he knew what he had to do. He asked her out to dinner just the two of them where he cooked and even bought dessert. They took a walk afterwards around the Uchiha gardens. It was a clear night with the full moon. He was walking with the girl he has fallen in love with and the air smelled like roses. He could think of nothing else better but to kiss her.

.

**cedar and hickory**

It was their first winter together as a couple. They just had dinner at his house and they spent the time cuddling in the sofa just watching the wood as it burned in the hearth and permeated the room with the aroma of cedar and hickory. It was getting late and he didn't want Sakura to leave so he asked her to stay. It was not planned but it happened slowly and without rush. The moment just felt right for their first time. He didn't know how he could feel any better than this with her underneath him, their bodies following a rhythm to some unknown music reaching frantically for that pinnacle. He lost count after Sakura's fifth and his third time reaching that peak. They slept at dawn, worn-out and satiated. He woke up a little after noon, naked and tangled with her underneath the covers. He thought of the ring sitting in his drawer and how he'd ask her to stay and never leave.

.

**home**

It's been 10 years with two equally loved sons, a beautiful little girl and one still on the way. He and Sakura had been busy restoring the Uchiha clan and fulfilling their duties as Konoha shinobi. There were many more scents and many more memories associated with them. But there is always one true thing he knew. She may smell different than before, or smell different every other time but the one scent he would always associate her with, was that Sakura would always smell like home.

.


End file.
